EASTON – There are new apps that can be downloaded for free and some parents haven’t heard of them.

“Snapchat is a messaging service where you can send pictures or video for seconds at a time and you can also write a little comment on it, then you set a time for it to delete itself,” said cyber-expert Katie Greer. When the other person opens it, the countdown begins. “It’s supposed to disappear, but you can still take a screen shot of the material,” she said. Messages from Snapshot can also be saved or forwarded. “I don’t recommend letting kids use Snapchat to any parents. I think it’s a horrible message to kids, even if they send silly pictures, those can still end up on a billboard,” said Greer.

Snapchat is what one 17-year-old student at Oliver Ames High School used to get photos from a 15-year-old and 17-year-old female student, before downloading them to his iPad, said Easton Police Chief Allen Krajcik. The incident didn’t take place at Oliver Ames High School. “When someone takes a picture, who knows where it will end up and with that application called Snapchat, the photos don’t disappear like people think they do,” Krajcik said.

Another free app and website is Ask.fm. According to Greer, it allows people to anonymously post questions or statements on a person’s profile, answers can be either text or video and people can post anything.

Kik is another free texting app that concerns Greer. It can be downloaded on an iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android or Blackberry. Once a profile page and username are created, students can text each other just by using wifi. “One student told me he uses Kik because his parents don’t know what it is,” Greer said.